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INNOVATION: THE SIMPLE BIT AND THE DIFFICULT BIT

Simple is a word you come across frequently in Report 103. I have often argued
that the innovation process should be kept simple. After all, children, artists
and entrepreneurs all seem to have little trouble generating creative ideas
which can be turned into innovative results. Moreover, innovation should often
focus on simplification. Technical products, business administrative processes
and professional services all tend to be complex. Any simplification of these
is usually a good thing. Even our idea management software (Jenni: http://www.jpb.com/jenni/)
emphasises simplicity and ease of use.

Nevertheless, the actual act of innovation has a simple component and a difficult
component. The simple bit is the idea generation and evaluation process. This
is especially true for creative thinkers like you: generating ideas is not taxing.
Indeed, it is often fun. And evaluating those ideas to determine which have
the greatest potential, while not as fun as generating ideas, is a relatively
easy task.

But implementing ideas can be difficult. Implementing highly innovative ideas
can be very difficult. Consider the following exercise:

A. Make a list of 25 improvements you would like to make on your home. Then
choose the three most innovative ideas. This is the simple bit.

B. Implement your three best ideas. This is the difficult bit.

In order to implement your innovative home improvements, you will probably
need an architect to determine the technical viability of your idea as well
as to design a way to implement it. You may need to get planning permission
to go ahead. If you are a capable carpenter, you may be able to turn your ideas
into reality yourself. Otherwise, you will probably need builders and possibly
an electrician and plumber. Other experts may also be needed.

Then, of course there are materials. You also need to bear in mind the inconvenience
of living in your home while people are building, not to mention the mess.

If you are now thinking: “Ha ha, Jeffrey, my ideas don't require nearly
so much work; I only wanted to paint the front room, rearrange the furniture
in the living room and plant some flowers in the front garden!”, I would
argue that your ideas were not that innovative. Sure, some innovative ideas
are very simple to implement. Most are not.

Now, let's take your ideas to the organisational level. Imagine you want to
develop a housing complex with 100 houses all of which include your innovative
ideas. This makes things even more difficult. Of course, you probably only need
the architect once, but you will need to build your idea 100 times. If your
idea is really radical, you might need to build a prototype, test, make moulds,
train workers how to build you idea and more.

Worse, if your idea is a radically innovative idea, you won't even be sure
people will want to buy your houses. You expect them to, but there is always
the possibility people will say “Yuckers! [a favourite term of my five
year old son], we just want a good old fashioned style house – and none
of this high-tech nonsense!” If that happens, you will be out a lot of
money indeed. And risk always makes things more difficult, doesn't it?

So, why take on the risk and difficulty of implementing innovative ideas in
your new housing complex? After all, you could build traditional houses and
sell them. In most countries, that is a relatively safe investment. There are
several reasons to innovate, of course:

Although your houses might fail to sell, they might also be wildly successful
with everyone in the market wanting to buy a unit and land owners hiring
you to develop similar housing units on their property. Moreover, you can
mitigate the risk in various ways, such as by building a model of one of
your innovative houses, showing it to prospective buyers and collecting
down-payments from them.

Profit margins on innovative new products can be high, particularly if
there is a limited supply. There are many people who want to be the first
to own an innovative new house, car, television, or other product.

The process of implementing your innovative new housing ideas can often
lead to other innovative ideas which can be implemented in your houses and
which can benefit your business. Such innovations in the housing business
might include new ways to build housing components, new ways to structure
utilities within a building or even new materials that can be used in construction,
to name but a few.

Launching innovative new products is good public relations (PR). It helps
set your corporate image as being a leader in your field, rather than a
follower. And that makes it easier to sell all of your products. People
feel more confident buying from a leader.

If you do not implement your innovative housing ideas, a competitor might
do so and be wildly successful, gaining all the benefits described above and
leaving you to have to follow that competitor.

Worse, as your competitors adopt their own innovations, you are left behind;
perceived by your market as an outdated housing developer unable to provide
the exciting new features your competitors are offering. Admittedly, this
is more of an issue in some industries than in other industries.

The result is that, while the innovation process is a simple one, actually
innovating is typically a difficult process with substantial inherent risk.
Nevertheless, the rewards can also be substantial.

THE FIRST RULE OF INNOVATION

Here's a new innovation rule for you, one that should be every organisation's
first rule of innovation:

Don't try to innovate unless you intend to innovate.

Sounds silly doesn't it? It's not. Over the years I have seen far too many
examples of what I call “boomerang innovation”. It's a tremendous
waste of money and highly demotivating for all concerned.

Boomerang innovation is never intended. It just happens. Typically an organisation
will invest in some kind of idea generation activity such as brainstorming,
an ideas campaign or something similar. Let us imagine that Acme Watering Cans
Inc. decides to brainstorm new product ideas.

First, they call together a dozen division managers to come to headquarters
in order to spend a day brainstorming. In addition, a facilitator is hired to
manage the brainstorming. Adding managers' time, facilitator's fee and travel
expenses, the cost thus far is probably at least €/$/£ 20,000.

The facilitator is good and the managers are creative, so the result is a lot
of ideas are generated, including a number of very creative ideas that could
transform the way people think about watering cans.

Sometimes the process stops here. Sometimes it continues. In the case of Acme
Watering Cans, Inc, let us assume the innovation process continues. The best
ideas move on to a review process, where they are evaluated by experts and business
cases are drawn up. This of course adds to the cost of the innovation exercise,
perhaps another €/$/£ 10,000 in staff time.

The best ideas are presented to top management together with some very rosy
potential figures. Management questions the figures and all sides accept that
because these ideas are very innovative, concrete numbers cannot be established.
Nevertheless, there is clear potential to meet or even beat the financial projections.

Then: nothing. Management does not implement the ideas. Indeed, they simply
seem to forget the innovative ideas and continue with business as usual. Just
as a boomerang arcs back to the thrower, the innovative effort arcs back to
the initiator and, in spite of having made the effort to generate and develop
innovative ideas, her organisation does not implement those ideas. The initiator
is left with nothing more than that with which she started. And, of course,
the entire effort to generate innovative ideas which will never be implemented
costs the organisation tens of thousands of Euro or Dollars or Pounds.

I have come across numerous others in the creativity and innovation business
who have had the same experience, so it would seem to be commonplace. Yet, I
have not seen any research, nor have I performed any research on why innovative
ideas are sought but not implemented. However, we can make some safe assumptions:

A desire not to rock the boat. Innovative ideas tend to be disruptive
and the more innovative they are, the more disruptive they are. Note, I
am not referring to Disruptive Innovation as coined by Clayton M. Christensen.
Rather disruption in the day to day operations of your business. A radical
product modification, requires retooling your assembly line, writing new
product documentation and more. Changing an internal process to improve
efficiency means that many employees need to relearn how to perform certain
tasks. Some employees may even be made redundant by the change. Many people
– if not most people – do not really like to rock the boat.
They don't want radical change. They want predictability and security at
work.

Risk. Innovation, as has been stated numerous times in this journal,
is an inherently risky thing. Radical product changes may make your product
more appealing, open new markets and result in substantial profits. Think
of Chrysler's mini-vans, the forefather of the gazillions of mini-vans we
see on the roads today. On the other hand, radical product ideas can bomb
tremendously. Think: DeLorean or Bricklin. Do you even remember the DeLorean
or the Bricklin?

Lack of idea stakeholders (see Report 103, 15 August 2006 issue:
http://www.jpb.com/report103/archive.php?issue_no=20060815).
Idea stakeholders buy into an idea and promote it within an organisation.
This happens naturally in some firms, but has to be a conscious action in
other firms, especially firms which are not big on innovation. Obviously,
if no one in the firm is buying into an idea, it is unlikely to be implemented
no matter how good it might be.

The lesson to be learned here is simple: don't start to innovate, unless you
really mean it. Not only are innovation initiatives which result in no idea
implementation a waste of time and money, they are also highly demotivating
to your employees. Who is going to want to waste her valuable time generating
ideas for a firm she knows will not do anything productive with those ideas?

And that brings us back to the first rule of innovation: don't try to innovate
unless you intend to innovate

PUBLIC IDEA MANAGEMENT

In a very short period of time, we have been contacted by two different groups
regarding using Jenni for huge public idea management implementations. One is
for a US State. The other is for all the school children in an entire country.

One aims to launch state wide innovation challenges that will invite the public
to submit ideas on improving services to the community. The other aims to launch
science challenges at various levels to school children in order to invite them
to devise innovative scientific solutions to problems.

Both programmes are excellently thought out and innovative in their own right.
The US State in question is geographically huge (okay, to be honest almost all
US states are huge in comparison to Belgium where I live!), but thinly populated.
As a result, a web based idea management solution is an excellent means of communicating
with the public and soliciting their ideas on how their government and government
services can be improved. If government is to be for the people, then idea management
is an excellent, democratic method of getting ideas for the public from the
public.

The country is not a place typically associated with science education. Likewise,
it is vast and sparsely populated. As a result, idea management is an excellent
means of launching innovative challenges for everyone.

Moreover, poor science performance in school is an issue affecting many countries
in the world, such as the USA – which has a long history of scientific
innovation (note: the USA is not the country that is talking with us about idea
management). A public, web based idea management tool offering kids the opportunity
to respond to scientific challenges on-line, in a familiar web environment is
an excellent way to make science more fun, more interesting and more collaborative
than science text books can ever be.

I am excited about both programmes and expect to bring you more news as they
develop.

Report 103 is edited by Jeffrey Baumgartner and is published on the first and
third Tuesday of every month.

You may forward this copy of Report 103 to anyone, provided you forward it
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